2001 Philadelphia Regional
I had just finished coaching basketball for the year and my wife was so glad I was going to be home more (oops). As an English teacher, I helped the students on Team 103 edit a few newsletters during the year at the request of team leader Cathy Beck. I had also seen their robot one time at a faculty presentation, but that was my whole exposure to FIRST until Cathy and her husband Dave (regional WFA winner) asked me if I wanted to attend a competition. I said, "Sure" - heck it was a day off of school.
So I board the bus at 6 am on Friday with the rest of the team not knowing what to expect. We get there, I sit down with the group at the Drexel field house and ask Dave and Cathy what I can do. They tell me to just enjoy my day. That lasted maybe 20 minutes. I walk around the pits and sense the energy in the place and the first match starts and I go batty with excitement.
I noticed all of the alliance strategy stuff happening and I saw 103 really had little scouting/strategy going on. The coaching instincts kicked in and I asked Dave, "Do you mind..." He proceeds to give me two team members and said, "Go for it." With some blank paper and a vague idea of the game we developed a scouting/strategy system on the fly.
As luck would have it, 103 had an awesome day and I got really excited about it. Seeing the teams cooperate the way they did totally blew me away. Saturday I couldn't go back with the team, but followed match scores on the web (just 24 hours earlier I had no clue what FIRST was), and lo and behold 103 was a member of the winning alliance. Dave called me on the way home to tell me what I already knew.
Needless to say I was more than interested, but Monday morning in the school hallway Dave came walking towards me with a gold medal.
"Here, we really appreciate what you did for us."
"I can't take that, I didn't do anything."
"We talked about it and the kids want you to have it."
That was it, I was done. I wound up going to Epcot a few weeks later with the team and upon my return scheduled an appointment with the principal to ask him how he felt about me resigning as a basketball coach to be a full time member of Team 103.
Almost four years, another teaching job at a new school, a new team in the works, and an appointment as a senior mentor later, my wife is still waiting for me to come home...
Thank you Cathy and Dave.
